ScanTool.net Blog

Donal O'Connor is a B.Sc. student in the Software Development and Computer Networking program at the [Cork Institute of Technology](http://www.cit.ie/) in Ireland. In January of 2009, Donal presented his project idea for a final year student project, a Linux-based in-car diagnostic computer, and asked if ScanTool.net would sponsor him. Donal has just finished his project, [Automon](http://automon.donaloconnor.net/). Read more about it, in Donal's [blog](http://automon.donaloconnor.net/).

Due to a late delivery of a critical component, shipments of ElmScan 5, ElmScan 5 USB, and ElmScan 5 Bluetooth scan tools will be delayed. Orders placed between February 4th and February 10, will ship on Wednesday, February 11th (sooner, if possible).

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. Sale prices in effect during this period, will be honored.

All cars and light trucks built for sale in the United States after 1996 are required to be OBD-II compliant. The European Union OBD legislation is somewhat more complicated.

An OBD-II compliant vehicle can use any of the five communication protocols: J1850 PWM, J1850 VPW, ISO9141-2, ISO14230-4 (also known as Keyword Protocol 2000), and more recently, ISO15765-4/SAE J2480 (a "flavor" of CAN). US car manufacturers were not allowed to use CAN until model year 2003, but as of model year 2008 and going forward, all vehicles will use the CAN protocol.